The BritPack on the Cover of Newsweek

Just as I was bemoaning the fact that NEWSWEEK did not turn to Packaging Girlhood for advice for their Girls Gone Wild feature article, it struck me that Paris, Britney,a nd Lindsey must be thrilled to be covered in Newsweek. Hey, they are now REAL news, and not just fodder for People Magazine. But is this real news or just another way we all glamourize girl pain and girl antics, giving short shrift to real girls and their lives. Lyn and I have an op ed on this very topic that we're trying to get out there, and it may end up here, but until then, a few comments:

Raina Kelley and Kathleen Deveney (the authors of the article) do just want marketers and the media want them to do which is blame the parents, blame the girls.  Parents can feel oh so superior to "other parents" who buy their daughters Bratz lunchboxes and allow them to watch MTV, until they wake up and discover that these messages about teens gone wild are everywhere and a just say no approach won't work.  If our solution is to police little girls, take away any healthy sex education they might get in the schools, and make moms feel guiltier and guiltier, we just leave more room for marketers and the media to surround and bombard girls with images of pop star diva teens who either get attention when they are crazy wild sexy like boys, or when they get depressed and alcoholic and go downhill.  We call that "the glamour of being Ophelia."  There's a solution, but it means joining together with other parents and working with grass roots organizations like Hardy Girls Healthy Women, Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, ACME, etc. to make these advertisers and media more responsible,  not Paris, not Lindsey, and not the mom next door. 

Comments

[Dr. Susan Bartell]

Sorry you didn't make it into the article. You should have!! Unfortunately, the power of the almighty dollar is more important to the media and the advertisers than our kids

[Shaping Youth]

Concur that you would've been a perfect resource for them, as would Shaping Youth, but as I just wrote about their accusation of parental 'complicity'---they were too busy being 'complicit' with making the registers go ka-ching by featuring that cover photo of celebs as a marketing draw.

The content was not particularly insightful, though they made a few good historic references re: the Mae West & Madonna 'twas ever thus' phenom.

Unfortunately, I disagree w/the downplaying of same, as it's an ENTIRELY new 'media-n-marketing' world out there when it comes to 'packaging' girlhood, womanhood, and childhood altogether.